Mega Man X6: Absolute Zero
by Yondaime-dono
Summary: Divergence from end of X5. X thought he knew how cold war could be. But when some unexpected guests join the Maverick War, he learns what it truly means to have blood cooled to absolute zero. Unsure about eventual rating.
1. Prologue

Okay so before anyone gets confused, let's get this straight: I **did _not like _**MEGA MAN X6. I thought the game was horribly thrown together and had the least sensible plot of any game in the series...at least since they'd decided to make the plot an open book. This made me incredibly angry, because X5 was perhaps my favorite game since X2...and I expected it to get a respectable follow up.

The end result of my anger was years of marination on an odd question. What _would _have been a satisfying X6 for me?

The answer, eventually...is this story. Although, it would have been one heck of a plot to cover before the game started...some Metal Gear solid style backstory setup in quick video clips or something.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy speculating about how interesting this would be.

* * *

**Mega Man X6: _Absolute Zero  
_Prologue**

* * *

_Clank. Clank. Clank._

The sound was distant. Hollow. It didn't approach or retreat...it was simply there.

Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the low light, scanning the room for the source of the sound. The room was humongous, but metallic debris was strewn all over. His eyes widened as the light source seemed to move, throwing his point of reference off. When the room finally stopped spinning, he focused on the sound, homing in on its location once more.

It seemed forever before he realized he was listening to his own feet, plodding forward without his conscious thought. In fact, he only recognized it when they stopped. Suddenly, the room pitched at an odd angle, and his eyes were looking at the dark ground. Chaos cluttered his mind as he attempted to figure out what was going on...was this a dream? A vision?

No. He just couldn't _feel_ anything. Something was _very _wrong.

Slowly, memories came back. Yes...there was a reason for this mess. He had just lost to X and Zero...again. A part of him raged as he realized that he couldn't remember how many times that had happened. Another part wondered what had happened to his mental faculties...because he _never_ lost count of that number. It seemingly defined his existence; it testified to his eternal struggle with them. And, he would never forgive himself if -- on the day of his final victory -- he was forced to gloat about defeating them on the (n+1)th try...

Good grief, why couldn't he focus?

Memory continued to come online. Slowly, the picture of a space colony entered his mind...

_Damn._

Apparently, that hadn't been his best plan. He certainly had given his all to the hope of having Zero return to his side. He faintly remembered wanting that return...that...reunion...with Zero. But the memory seemed so distant, such a hint of what it should have been. It was as if the part of him that cared about it was missing right now. All he knew was that Zero was gone forever.

Hmm...gone forever. He assumed that meant dead, but the words were in his memory with no further explanation.

Why the hell was his program so disorganized?! Did the colony attack do this?

That had to be it, he realized. He must've exerted himself far more in creating that viral colony than he'd originally thought. Considering how closely integrated his program was with the virus, that was quite possible. He'd split his "soul" too thin, and this was his penalty for it.

More memories came back, and he suddenly remembered a history he hadn't realized he was missing.

Panic streaked across his mind. Just how close had he come to losing...himself? Close enough to not even miss his identity.

With that, everything changed. The noise that had been streaming through his mind was immediately forced away by focused thought. _Enough of this..._

Sigma consciously searched for his legs and arms, and slowly felt a connection form between his conscious mind and some sort of body. It was moments like these that made him hate X and Zero...moments where he was forced to reconnect to this world. It was as if he had died, been rejected in Heaven, and been reincarnated while the gods delayed judgement on him. It made him hate the gods too...either they should force him to stay dead, or they should let him win. Sigma concentrated, searching for a change, and he began to feel the coursing of power through his servos...

His servos.

Something laughed, and Sigma became aware of the new, gruffer voice he possessed. This body wasn't his...it was just something the virus had randomly taken over when he'd lost. It was the same situation as always, he told himself. He was always a little disoriented and confused after...setbacks. True, it had never been that bad, but it changed nothing. He would fashion himself a proper body soon enough...and this bulky husk would be no more. No matter the reason the angry gods had done so, he'd been given another chance to topple the Hunters.

Yet, as he tried to get up and felt his brain struggle to get the commands out, Sigma wondered how many more chances he would have...

* * *

It had been a good while since humanity had seen the sun. 

The chaos of man's sudden exile from the surface of the planet...the growing sense of betrayal by its own creations as the reason for departure was announced...the ever-apparent dependency on those creations to save their planet...all of them were having a profound effect on the psyche of the whole species. Combine that with the dark, damp, and cold caves that tortured their bodies as they attempted to survive, and time seemed to crawl for nearly everyone.

Dr. Cain was one of those whose sense of time was failing him, but he figured that was because he was one of the oldest men alive, and this was the longest he'd ever spent indoors. If you could call an underground cave indoors, that is. Without a sun to watch set or weather patterns and plant life to reveal the changing of seasons, a year could have passed, and few would have been able to detect its passing. On the other hand, Cain was also fortunate enough to have a working watch and know that it had only been the longest _month_ of his life.

Sigma's last attack had proven to be his most effective, though not in the way that he'd likely hoped. In each of his previous attacks, he had done significant damage to Maverick Hunter, but the human race had been kept mostly out of harm's way. It was perhaps the greatest credit to Maverick Hunter that could be given: that no humans had been lost, even in the worst stages of the Maverick conflict. The situations had been contained as best they possibly could be, and Sigma's effect on humanity was the same as that of a rumored terrorist who the government was carefully watching. That is, there was a guarded confidence among the nations that everything was under control.

Sigma finally broke that confidence this time.

Infecting the Eurasia space colony with his viral code and crashing it into Earth had caused mass panic across the planet. As X boldly faced off with Zero and Sigma, the rest of Maverick Hunter began to realize just how extreme the repercussions of the crash would be to the Earth's landscape. Even though they had used the Enigma Cannon on the giant colony, it still held together, but Zero's crash attack had split the colony into manageable enough pieces for the Earth to survive impact. That didn't mean that the mass of debris wasn't still formidable, however.

Earthquakes shook the land, and major cities fell, crushed beneath sections of the space colony. As buildings collapsed and the planet shuddered, dust and debris clouded the air. Maverick Hunter immediately shifted its efforts away from finding Sigma (and unfortunately, Zero with him) and towards damage control. The hunters sent teams into the major cities hit by the crashes to salvage and rescue people stuck in the rubble. Signas, after seeing the readouts of just how much dust and dirt were in the air, quickly made the order to move all organisms possible underground. "Those with natural lungs that do not have filtration systems should get clear of this air," Signas said, "as it contains a large amount of dust and irritants that will do serious damage with prolonged exposure."

And so humanity went into ancient caves and bunkers while its creations, the Reploids, made every effort to repair the cities and make the air breathable again. Since Dr. Cain couldn't go up to the surface, Signas took it upon himself to lead the effort. After X's recovery, he was quick to join the team.

In the meantime, the human race sat, survived, and struggled with the shock of the situation. Dr. Cain, for one, had taken up smoking like a burning building. It wasn't a habit he had developed previously...it was just something to do to calm his nerves. As he enjoyed an evening cigar in an antique rocking chair, he smirked. If X were here now, the doctor mused, he'd likely have chided Cain into quitting before he ever started. Dr. Cain exhaled lighty, watching the smoke billow from his mouth. It was a good thing X wasn't here.

Truth was, he preferred this method of wasting his life away to the method Congress and the world's governments were taking. Apparently, they had too much time to just sit around doing nothing. They had to get together and debate about what kind of nothing to do. The world's government couldn't shut down and wait idly...even when the world they normally governed was likewise temporarily shut down. Instead, they demanded action.

The nations of the world had found a cause worth working together for, it seemed. A week into their stay in the underground, the World Congress requested Dr. Cain look into the possibility of extending Reploid armor and abilities to humans. The human race, they declared, was sick of standing by idly and watching the Reploids defend them. It was time for them to defend themselves.

At first glance, it had sounded like a great idea to Dr. Cain. Maverick Hunter's ranks would be bolstered with the strength of the best of the human race. It gave them the explicit support of the World Congress as the front line of humanity's defense. And, it gave them the opportunity to do something he'd been desiring to do, anyway. For a while now, Dr. Cain had been tinkering with the idea of what a human combat suit would entail. Now, he would have the chance to turn his notes into actual machinery. It would be an interesting process, and Cain had been sure it would be fully productive and good for Maverick Hunter.

But Dr. Cain had more time to think than he had ever had in his life. Now, he wasn't so sure. After all, this was quite unprecedented, and he wondered what the consequences would be. How would Reploids and humans interact when they were on the battlefield together? He hadn't really considered a Reploid response to this movement...and he certainly hadn't considered X's. _Oh dear._ Would this be looked at as humans offering support...or would they think humanity was accusing them of failure and taking the role of the Hunters?

Time also reminded him of what humanity was capable of. Would a human ever turn Maverick? That concept was, of course, a silly one. A human couldn't be infected by Sigma's viral code, so of course he couldn't turn Maverick. But, give the right human power and the right Reploid contact with him, and anything was possible. Humans didn't need a virus to corrupt them. And a human turning would be much more dangerous and much less detectable...he wouldn't have the erratic, aggressive behavior of a Maverick to tip everyone off.

And now that they had made their first step into the arena, how much more influence would the World Congress seek when oil wasn't the only liquid spilled in the Maverick War?

No...now he didn't like it all. But it wasn't his call...he had gotten Reploids their rights, but he was no leader in society anymore. As respect for him rose with the Reploids, so it fell with the humans. Now, he was certain, the Congress only remembered that he was the creator of the creatures that had forced everyone underground. Arguing with Congress on a very bored World stage was the last thing he wanted to do with his off time. He would do what they asked of him.

_Twee-deet!_

Dr. Cain heard a sharp beep and felt his arm begin to vibrate. Quickly, he flipped a switch on his belt and expelled the cigar smoke from his lungs. "Speak." Something in his mind registered that his voice sounded raspier.

A familiar voice shot through the speaker on Dr. Cain's belt. "Doc, it's X. Just thought I'd let you be the first to know...the surface air levels are tolerable for human life again. We're going to keep working for three more days so that they can be more than just tolerable. Then we'll let everyone back up."

The voice in the device at Dr. Cain's waist grew silent, as did the doctor himself. Anyone who had seen his face would have noticed a look of acceptance cross it, but no one was in the room. Without a word, he tossed his cigar nonchalantly onto the floor, then replied. "Excellent. Keep me posted on any changes...otherwise I'll see you in three days."

"Roger that. X, over and out."

"Cain out." He flipped the switch back down, and rose from the rocking chair. Smashing the cigar with his foot as he passed, Dr. Cain exited his temporary bedroom. Things would pick up soon, he knew. The time for lollygagging was over; he needed to live to see this chaos through.

* * *

I can't say how often I'll work on this, but what I have in my head is an interesting alternative to the crap that happened in the latter half of the X series... 

My Naruto fics come first because that is my joy and that series has much more powerful (compelling) characters than this one to work with. I still love the X series, however, and this is my first time attempting to write anything for it. I don't think I've even read any X fics...

As such, I'd appreciate it a bunch if you'd read and review, especially as I get further into attempting to portray X's character. That'll be the real fun...


	2. Chapter 1: Organic Number 1

The room was serene. The bright lights and hard, cold floors gave no warning of the chaos that would happen here shortly. The only hint that this was actually a training area was the room's massive size. Length, width…it didn't matter. Either way, it was the length of a football field. At the center of the room stood a Reploid wearing a dark black armor with gold trim.

Actually, he wasn't a Reploid, but few would know that by looking at him. He was the first of his kind, after all. _But, not the last, _he declared. Deep within, he felt his heart start to beat wildly.

_Too early...too early. Deep breaths. Calm down, Carl._

Carl Ibanez closed his eyes and wiped the smile from his helmet-covered face, attempting to drown out the extraneous noise in his mind. Today was the day he'd been waiting for...the day that his progress would make him famous. It was the day that he'd bring in a new era...but all of that required him to be focused. He was reveling in the moment far too much before it had happened.

Slowly, he felt the quiet wash over him...the artificial hum of machines and electricity surrounded him and drowned out the beating of his heart. He knew the arena he was standing in was 90000 square feet of intensity, but now he could feel his awareness heighten as the suit fed him information about his surroundings. His position within the room was clear now...he could feel the corners of the room.

Good. This was much better.

In the moment of pure silence that followed, Carl's mind drifted to his previous conversations with Dr. Cain, the designer of the suit of armor that he now wore like a second skin. Many different warnings had been given to Ibanez on the first day they had met; only one had stuck this far.

_"This suit does not make you a Reploid. It doesn't make you think like one, or at the speed of one. It doesn't give you their reaction time. Its entire goal is to protect you first and foremost, and to give you the capability to fight them."_

The second phrasing of the warning had gotten his attention more..._"Don't go thinking you're God because you have this suit." _He'd taken that to heart...Reploids were still dangerous, no matter what armor he was wearing.

Something in the room changed, and Ibanez realized the drill was on. Reaching behind him, he grabbed for a handle on the back of his armor and detached the beam saber...

It was time to make history.

* * *

**Mega Man X6: _Absolute Zero  
_Chapter 1: Organic #1**

**

* * *

**

Fate had an odd way of insulting those who believed in it. That was Dr. Cain's most recent thought.

Since the first day of discussion in the World Congress about the possibility of having humans in Maverick Hunter, he'd attributed it to fate that it would eventually happen, and worked with it.

Fate had naturally upped the ante immediately.

The World Congress sought to find a worthy candidate to be their first experiment. Someone who would be capable of wearing the first ever powersuit; someone who would do humans justice as a representative of the known world.

Dr. Cain looked over their chosen one's documents once more. The man looked great on paper. Retired Captain Carl Ibanez of the US Marine Corps. Police officer. 26 years old. A great leader in everything he'd done. Ambitious. Strong. Smart. He had all the mental ability necessary to learn the acute differences between fighting a thug and facing a Reploid with a powersuit. And he had the physical ability to do it and perhaps even do it well someday. It was the perfect candidate.

But for some reason, as Dr. Cain looked up from the papers and at the man himself, he couldn't help but feel something intangible was off. The one-way looking glass would hide just how many people from the World Congress were in the little viewing room, watching him train. And yet, as he watched the half-black, half-Hispanic Ibanez, he couldn't shake his convictions. The smug look on Carl's face made it obvious that he knew he was being watched by many eyes. The American Congressmen found his confidence inspiring. Dr. Cain might have been an American, but this was upsetting to him. After 2 weeks of working with the man, the doctor was certain he'd found the difference. It wasn't confidence that fed Carl Ibanez...it was **pride. **Americans, he'd heard many times, never knew the difference.

As he watched Ibanez slip into his pre-battle meditation, Cain expected that the Reploids would see the difference...it was just the way fate worked.

* * *

Instantly, the slots in the wall all around the arena opened, and walking laser cannons took their first steps into the room. Each of them quickly located the others and coordinated their efforts to avoid crossfire. A moment later, they turned their attention toward their objective, a man in the middle of the arena clad in black and gold armor. He looked like a Reploid, but the robots easily saw through to the biorhythms beneath, and knew he was a human. Laser cannons powered up all throughout the room... 

At the center of the room, Ibanez smiled. A single golden blade activated from the handle in his hand. The glowing blade was jagged and wide...this was no beam saber. This was the first ever beam falchion.

As the cannons began to fire, Ibanez quickly dashed to the side, aided by the suit's powerful acceleration unit within the boots. Within another second, Ibanez had already sprinted to one of the cannons, evading its fire along the way, and was now on top of it. Quickly, he carved a large gash into the unmanned cockpit with his beam saber, and leaped over onto another nearby one.

* * *

Dr. Cain truly had worked on this armor with all his knowledge and heart. He had attempted to create a suit that allowed a man to become X for a while. But there were areas where he knew he could not succeed. Cain took a seat and fiddled with his cane as he considered his handiwork. 

First, the base of the suit had nowhere near the mobility (nor the agility) of X's personal armor. The extra acceleration added by the armor's boosters was great, but those boosters were heavy too. In addition, the weight support systems he'd added in to avoid the suit crushing its user were adding to the mass and slowing the acceleration. The suit was safe and padded, however, and he was okay with whatever he had to do to make that happen.

That would be only so much consolation in a battle where the wearer couldn't ever hit his opponent properly, however. It was a tradeoff he'd been willing to take, if only to minimize kills and perhaps remove some of the glamour of war that the candidates for Maverick Hunter had been blinded by.

Secondly, no suit of armor could transform a man's mind into a computer. Perhaps his senses could be honed to a comparable point with their digital equivalent, but the human mind didn't have the focus or pure processing power to compare with the technology of the late 2100's. Doctor Cain had gone to great lengths to explain to Ibanez that this suit would not make him the god of combat, or even a prophet.

Thus far, however, that deterrence attempt hadn't seemed to have an effect...Ibanez had fallen in love with the suit. Even with the limited acceleration, it still allowed him to move quicker than he ever had in his life, and it provided him with powerful defense and attack capabilities. Considering what the tests thus far had pitted him against, he probably didn't know the difference.

Dr. Cain awoke from his daydreaming; the others in the room had broken into loud cheering and applause. He glanced back toward the one-way mirror and discovered that Ibanez had torched the tanks. Considering how quickly he had done so, Dr. Cain was fairly certain he was as ready as he'd ever be.

* * *

The drill was complete, and Ibanez was welcomed into the monitoring room to meet his benefactors—without the powersuit, of course. One of the Congressmen walked forward and shook the man's hand. "It would seem that Dr. Cain's battlesuit is a supreme fit for you..." 

Ibanez gave the man a firm handshake and smiled lightly. Then his attention drifted to the man's comments. "The suit..."

Dr. Cain turned towards Ibanez now, and both men made eye contact. Immediately, Cain knew that something was up.

A look of determination brewed on Ibanez's face, and he turned back to the congressman. "...excuse me for a moment?"

The congressman nodded and shook his hand again, and Ibanez strode across the room toward the doctor.

Dr. Cain raised a quizzical eyebrow toward the man. "...yes?"

Ibanez looked him dead in the eyes, and Dr. Cain could feel his frustration. "Give me the truth," Ibanez said.

Dr. Cain had a feeling he knew what the man was asking for, but that didn't mean he'd save him the trouble of asking. Slowly, he parted his lips and spoke. "What?"

Ibanez remained still. "What have we proved with this experiment thus far?"

That gave Dr. Cain pause. The experiments thus far had proved a few important things about the durability of the powersuits, but they were being celebrated as if they were an officially finished product. Cain had been frustrated by the idea of having this stress test turn into a demo for the Congressmen, but he was surprised to note that Ibanez might feel the same way…

Before Cain could respond, Ibanez continued. "We've proved that you can build a suit of armor for a man...that can defeat robots from the last century. That does **not** make me a Maverick Hunter." Ibanez pointed and waved his fingers in front of the doctor's eyes as if lecturing him. "This is the 22nd century, Doctor--"

Doctor Cain smacked the boy's hand aside with his cane. "I know that..." He wasn't in the mood to be belittled. And he certainly wasn't going to curtsey before this fellow just because some of the benefactors were around. Ibanez grew silent, as did the rest of the room. If there was going to be an argument, it seemed no one wanted to miss it.

Cain looked at Ibanez carefully, as if trying to see his soul. In order to understand what Carl Ibanez wanted, Cain decided, another question had to be posed. What was it that Ibanez really wanted out of this? Fame? Fortune? Power? There had to be some type of motivation for taking this job...Cain couldn't imagine there were many people who would volunteer to be the first guinea pig just for the good of their country. No matter what it was, each option pointed to one reason for this conversation to occur.

If Carl was looking for fame out of this ordeal, it would be necessary for him to be on the front line of the Maverick War. Fame would come from fear of being at the other end of his blade. That meant he needed a powerful suit, not only good in protection but capable of taking Reploids down.

If he wanted true power, the same was necessary. A power trip wouldn't come in Maverick Hunter if all he had was an office job away from the combat. Fortune...that one was trickier. Fortune could perhaps come from a long career in Maverick Hunter. With an all-Reploid cast of warriors, Maverick Hunter had never paid anything before, but he imagined a human would have to be paid as opposed to being maintained.

No matter which was his motivation, Cain decided, each of them required a suit that would give him the chance to keep his name on people's lips. That left one reason for this conversation to be necessary. This suit…wasn't good enough for his purposes. _So he wants me to redesign the suit..._

Dr. Cain began to grow cross. "I've already told you once I'm not putting a group of humans on a battlefield without their protection being the number one priority...that is not going to change. So...what more could you want from me?"

Ibanez raised an eyebrow in surprise and shook his head. "That's not what I meant..."

The cane's bottom returned to its spot on the floor, and Dr. Cain slowly shifted his weight to rest upon it. "Then…what?"

"This suit is amazing by my standards. But, I need to _know _where it _really _stands."

_That _gave Dr. Cain pause...what did he mean by _where it really stands? _The old man inwardly smirked as he pieced it together…perhaps he'd judged the fellow too soon. "So you want a test against an actual Reploid? Is that it?"

"Yes, sir."

He seemed genuine enough...and that made Cain even more curious. Perhaps he was right and the suit wasn't good enough for Ibanez's purposes. But the question now changed. What **was** his purpose? Could he really be doing this for the good of the world? Was he really that idealist? Hmm.

"Ok. I'll see what I can do."

Ibanez shook his head, and extended a fist. "Don't see what you can do…do it! There are Reploids here that I can face…let me face a Reploid."

Dr. Cain looked away and considered it for a moment. True, there were Reploids here who could fight him. But, he wasn't sure he liked the idea of this particular powersuit being the only thing between the man and oblivion…

**"Let me fight X."**

Everyone in the room heard that, and heads tilted toward Ibanez in shock. Even though nothing was said, it was clear that everyone was shocked at his audacity.

Dr. Cain, too, was shocked, but for different reasons. "...you want to fight X?"

"It's the only way I'll ever know the truth of what this suit can do."

Dr. Cain frowned and shook his head. Fighting _any _Reploid would be enough to gauge the capabilities of that suit...and for any purpose worth having, that would be enough. He decided against the subtle approach and simply spoke his mind. "You're full of it. There's more to it than that, and you know it."

If the man had issues, Dr. Cain declared mentally, then they were going to air his dirty laundry right here and now, in front of the Congressmen. He'd know the truth, or he'd have this man out of the program.

Ibanez caught the implication here, and gave pause. Obviously, their conversation had an audience now, and he would wager they had an interest in hearing it all. Ibanez turned away from the doctor and walked closer to the middle of the room. Parting his lips lightly, he let loose his deep baritone voice, cutting up the volume for all who wished to hear.

"X was the first of his kind; everyone witnesses to that. The Reploids were made in his image and likeness, so he is like their god," Ibanez's said. His words felt covered in disgust and sarcasm, Dr. Cain noticed, but somehow his voice was still warm and confident. This man was a walking paradox.

The doctor's attention was pulled back by the sound of Ibanez's voice. "The maverick crisis infects Reploids and turns them into cold-blooded killers."

"And somehow, X is immune to it. No one knows why...he just is. Why are we so sure?" Ibanez began to get anxious, and turned to the Congressmen. "How do we know he hasn't just gotten lucky? How do we know he hasn't already been infected, and isn't simply hiding it in order to win us over?" Ibanez stopped a sentence short of implicating that X was working together with Sigma. No one would believe that even if he threw it out there, and he'd come off as a paranoid American. Yet the seeds of propaganda had taken their toll on the minds of his listeners. The Congressmen were deep in thought about his words. He called them back to the present.

"If X _did_ turn Maverick, what would stop him? Who would _try_?" These Congressmen knew even less about Maverick Hunter than Carl did, but he wasn't about to let them know that. Doubt shaded their countenances, and Carl Ibanez continued on.

"We used to think that Zero might fight a corrupted X, but now we know he was a black box as well." Again, Ibanez avoided implicating Zero in any way, continuing on without a hitch. "And now, he's for all intensive purposes dead. Who would be able to stop Maverick X?"

Silence. Everything was as he had expected. "I don't think any Reploid would be _man _enough to face his **god** in combat, even if his god was unleashing his wrath upon the entirety of the human race." Ibanez balled a fist. "That leaves me, at the moment."

Ibanez's eyes were on fire with confidence, and it was clear by the look on the government officials' faces that he had them in his hand. "I need to know if this suit is capable of handling a battle with the most dangerous Reploids in existence. I suspect it is not, but I must know. I need to know this suit's limits like I know my own…"

Ibanez walked back toward the doctor and locked eyes with him once again. "And, I must be able to face him. Give me battle with X."

Doctor Cain blinked, surprised by the level of intensity this fellow had. He obviously had some real interest in the job he'd been selected for, but his last statement had been profoundly revealing. Yes, there was a lot of fear of Reploid rebellion driving his actions…

Dr. Cain shook his head at the silliness of it all. So this was what drove this fellow. It wasn't honor or fame that he wanted. He had something against X...or against Reploids in general. Perhaps it was just fear...perhaps something more...Cain would watch him carefully. But, that was besides the point now...

Dr. Cain grabbed a seat and got off his legs before speaking. "I'll be blunt here…y**ou will _never_ defeat X**." A thoughtful look crossed his face as he considered the past few years and the incidents that had brought he and X together.

"Dr. Light was an amazingly insightful creator in robotics...his creations greatly surpass my own. He somehow was able to make X with technology that I didn't even know existed now...and yet his design was probably done 50 years ago. He's made X in such a way that he grows stronger with every conflict. He's constantly evolving...and his brain is able to adjust to everything. He's incredible..."

That didn't even cover the half of what the good Doctor Light had done. It was no mystery as to how X was growing stronger. Dr. Light had made X modular...and during every incident, X has found these modules and come back with even stronger armor than before. The great mystery of Cain's life was how Light had been able to hide these capsules near every great conflict to come. Had he just planted them _everywhere_? Or was there some logic that allowed him to calculate what would happen in the future? Cain didn't dare try to muse on these things aloud.

Dr. Cain turned and looked to Ibanez grimly. "I can't even create **Reploids **that can match him. **Sigma can't match him.** No suit of armor I ever create is going to match him. It's just not possible." Dr. Cain frowned, not really wanting to consider this hypothetical situation as strongly as he was. "If X becomes a Maverick, then we are all finished."

Murmurs and whispers were heard all around as fear and doubt spread throughout the room, but Dr. Cain remained silent. Casual conversation within the room had ended a long time ago, and both Cain and Carl had grown quiet now. The air seemed palpably thicker now…edgier. It wasn't long before the government folks took the hint. They said their goodbyes to the two hostile parties and took off.

Dr. Cain, now alone with Ibanez, turned his attention to him.. Ibanez was a far different man from what he had expected. And yet, for all the differences, there were still areas where he needed to be set straight. If he was going to function in Maverick Hunter, it would have to happen. The differences in Ibanez's character from Cain's expectations, however, had changed _who_ would need to do it.

Cain lifted out of his seat and made his way toward the door. No more good conversation would come at the moment…he needed to consider the possibilities. Yet, as he reached the door and turned the handle, there _was_ one thing that he knew would help things…

"Might I request," Cain said, "that before you fight with X, you perhaps talk with him?"

Ibanez's right eyebrow raised, and the door shut.

* * *

Notes: 

-- If you were wondering, the armor that Ibanez wears in this scene is the Shadow Armor that X uses in the actual X6 game, complete with the sword.

-- I originally planned this chapter to cover a lot more, then I realized it would be stupid to make the chapters SOOOO long.

-- This fic will have a lot of intro (because the actual game probably wouldn't make nearly as fun of a story as would the plot for the game...).

-- If this feels rushed to you, let me know, and I'll stop publishing chapters the same night I write them. Sometimes it's unnecessary, but sometimes it's good to look things over later. Let me know if that's the case here.


End file.
